Thomas Jacob Galbraith

Historic Lower Sioux Agency warehouse. Andrew Myrick is believed to have been murdered here.

The burning Fort Ridgely during the siege by the Sioux

Little Crow, the leader of the Sioux at the start of the uprising. He blamed Galbraith for the war alone.

Thomas Jacob Galbraith (* 1825 in Pennsylvania , † 1909 in Cheyenne , Wyoming ) was an American politician and employee of the Bureau of Indian Affairs . He was one of the initiators of the Sioux uprising of 1862. As the agent in charge of the Lower Sioux Agency , he was significantly involved in the events surrounding the storming of the agency by Dakote - Sioux Indians on August 18, 1862. Chief Little Crow believed he was solely responsible for the uprising and the ensuing massacre of white settlers in the Minnesota Valley. Galbraith tried to defend herself against the allegations made. He would have helped the reservation Indians wherever he could.

Thomas Jacob Galbraith was born in Pennsylvania in 1825. Little is known about his career. In 1854 he came to what was then the Minnesota Territory . He sat in the Territorial Parliament and participated in the Constituent Assembly of the nascent state of Minnesota . He served in the House of Representatives from 1857 to 1861 and in the Minnesota Senate in 1861 . During this time he was appointed Indian agent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1860 , responsible among other things for the Lower Sioux Agency.

The Lower Sioux Agency was established in 1853 by the United States government as the administrative center of the newly created Lower Sioux Indian Reservation . Mdewakanton and Wahpekute Indians of the Santee Dakota Sioux populated the reservation, which was established after the Treaty of Mendota on August 5, 1851. In this contract, the Indians sold areas in southern Minnesota to the federal government for $ 1.4 million and withdrew to the reservation area. The funds were held in trust by the Bureau of Indian Affairs . The Indians decided to give up their nomadic life as hunters and become sedentary farmers. Furthermore, the contract consisted of obligations for the delivery of food and other equipment to the settling Indians. The Lower Sioux Agency was founded to manage the funds and set up schools.

The Indian reservation was further reduced in 1858 when Minnesota was admitted as a state to the United States. Their territory no longer offered enough space for the Indians to fend for themselves, leaving them completely dependent on government payments and white traders. Government payments, in turn, have always suffered badly from the corruption in the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

In 1861 the situation of the Indians worsened. A bad harvest forced them to buy food on credit from the vendors and go into debt. In 1862 the US government's payments were also delayed due to the war of civil secession ( Washington was unsure whether the annual payments should be paid in gold or with the new greenbacks ).

Galbraith resigned in the spring of 1862. The reason he gave was the lack of payments. He was asked to continue his office until the problems with the lack of funds were resolved. He tried what he thought was impossible. According to his own statements, he tried to convince the white traders to sell food to the starving Indians on credit. He also tried to convince everyone of the new greenback as a currency.

On August 15, 1862, the reservation residents asked Andrew Myrick, a white merchant, to sell groceries on credit. The dealer refused. To the Galbraith present he is said to have said: "In my opinion you should eat grass or your own excrement when you are hungry". It is controversial whether this sentence really happened that day. It is undisputed that Andrew Myrick often made such statements. He was known as a quick-tempered, quick-tempered man. The Dakota on the reservation called him 'Wacinco', which means 'hot head'. It is also undisputed that Galbraith refused to hand over food from the agency's emergency reserve to the Indians. The reserves would only be for the agency's employees, not the Indians. He referred to white traders like Andrew Myrick.

The payments due to the Indians had arrived in Minnesota's capital St. Paul on August 16, 1862, and were forwarded to Fort Ridgely on August 17 . But the payments came too late. On the same day, four Dakota warriors in search of food murdered five white settlers. A council of war convened after the murder decided to launch further attacks on the white settlements and asked Chief Little Crow to lead them.

On August 18, 1862, Indians led by Little Crow stormed the Lower Sioux Agency. Andrew Myrick tried to escape by climbing through a window on the second floor of the agency's warehouse. He was later found dead with grass in his mouth. The Indians burned the agency down. Most of the whites escaped on a ferry across the Minnesota River and managed to escape to Fort Ridgely. In the course of the day several white settlements in the Minnesota Valley were burned down and most of the inhabitants were killed.

After receiving the money at Fort Ridgely, Galbraith is said to have been en route from the Upper Sioux Agency, 30 miles from the Lower Sioux Agency, to Fort Snelling on August 18, 1862 . He wanted a group of volunteer fighters to accompany the Renville Rangers on their way to the fort. After that, he intended to go to the Lower Sioux Indian Reservation to give the residents the money due. On August 19, 1862, he learned of the uprising in St. Peter . He and the recruits who were supposed to be fighting in the Civil War returned to Fort Ridgely. In the meantime, Galbraith's wife, Henrietta, and their two children were able to get to safety in the fort. Galbraith helped defend the fort. On September 2, he was badly wounded in the Battle of Birch Coulee . He was taken to St. Paul, the capital of Minnesota, to recover.

Six weeks after the uprising ended, 392 Dakota were tried in military tribunals. In trials, some of which lasted only five minutes, 303 of them were sentenced to death for rape and murder, including the murder of Andrew Myrick. On December 26, 1862, 38 Dakota were publicly hanged in the largest mass execution in American history in Mankato .

After the uprising was put down, he had to justify himself to two Senate committees in Washington. Im was accused of sparking the Sioux uprising. Galbraith died in Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 1909.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Minnesota Legislative Reference Library
2. ↑ "For what reason we have commenced this war I will tell you. It is on account of Major Galbraith. “Little Crow in a letter to Henry Sibley, 1862.
3. ↑ I assert this, and that too without subsidizing, or even consulting with anyone, that I can prove that never at any time in their history have the Sioux of the Mississippi been better supplied with provisions, clothing, implements, seeds and aids to plant than during my administration
4. ^ Alvin M. Josephy: The Civil War in the American West. Knopf, New York 1991, p. 107.
5. ↑ By the spring of 1862, fed up with the inefficiencies of the Indian system in which he was enmeshed, Galbraith resigned his post as agent, then agreed to hold his resignation until after the annuity payment was made.
6. ^ Richard H. Dillon: North American Indian Wars . Booksales, City 1920, p. 126.
7. ↑ But another side of his persona is emphasized by the Indians' name for him, Wacinco, which meant “hothead”.
8. ↑ August 18, 1862 - Beginning of the Sioux Uprising (or Santee War) in Minnesota
9. ^ Most settlers in the Minnesota River Valley had no experience with warring Indians. Those who did not flee to a fort or defended settlement fast enough were at the Indians' mercy. The Sioux killed most of the settlers they encountered but often made captives of the women and children
10. ↑ On August 18, Galbraith and a group of Civil War recruits known as the Renville Rangers took off from the Upper Agency. Galbraith believed he would deliver the recruits to Fort Snelling, return to the reservation to make the annuity payment